Secret Santa
by Miss Hermione Holmes
Summary: Percy and Annabeth organize a get-together for a few of their friends just after they return from their first semester at New Rome.


**This one-shot was written for PJO Secret Santa on Tumblr, more specifically as a gift for athenastudying. :) enjoy!**

* * *

"Percy, hurry up," Annabeth muttered under her breath, tapping her foot impatiently outside the men's restroom. Their plane to New York was boarding, and it was stressing her out that they weren't on it yet. She held her boyfriend's backpack on her elbow, with hers slung over her opposite shoulder. They didn't have much in them - Annabeth's had earbuds, her laptop, and a notebook, and, well, who knows what Percy's had.

As soon as Percy came out of the bathroom, Annabeth tossed him his backpack and motioned to the gate. "If we're ever this late again," she said, "I will personally murder you, Percy Jackson."

"Glad it's personal," said Percy seriously. "'M not too keen on the idea of you hiring a monster to murder me."

She rolled her eyes, the hint of a smile playing at her lips. "Not sure I'll be able to survive this flight," remarked Annabeth as they walked to the entrance of the plane.

Upon reaching the seating area, Percy and Annabeth quickly took the last spot with two seats available in the very back. They both set their backpacks down on the floorboards in front of them, with Percy pulling out his earphones out of a pocket in his bag.

"Wait," said Annabeth, grabbing his wrist before he could plug the cord into his phone. "We've got to go over a few things if tonight is going to go smoothly."

"Remind me what's going on tonight?" said Percy, dropping the earphones in his lap.

Annabeth looked at him for a moment, frowning. "Everybody's coming over to your mom's place? Remember?"

"Right," said Percy. "Secret santa, that's it."

"Please tell me you got something," said Annabeth.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Percy said smugly. "I ordered it a few days ago and it was delivered to Mom's apartment a few days ago. I even called her to make sure it arrived."

"Wow," said Annabeth, impressed.

Percy grinned. "I'm one step ahead of you, Wise Girl."

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "We should make a list of the things we need to do before everybody arrives." Annabeth pulled a notebook and pen out of her backpack, uncapping the pen and flipping to a fresh page. She began to write down all of the things they needed to do once they got home.

"You've been thinking about this, haven't you?" Percy observed, looking down at the paper then back up at his girlfriend.

"All morning," she admitted without hesitation. "Pizza's okay, right?"

"When am I ever going to say no to pizza?" he remarked.

"Great," said Annabeth. "After everyone gets here, you and all of the other guys can go to that place you're obsessed with-"

"Murphy's?"

Annabeth nodded. "Yeah. You all can get takeout while the other girls and I get everything else ready."

"Sweet," he said, spinning the end of his earphones around. "'S that it?"

"Not at all."

"What else do we have to worry about?" asked Percy.

"We were going to try to make dessert, weren't we?" said Annabeth tentatively. "Right? I called your mom to make sure she had the cookie dough?"

"Oh, yeah!"

Annabeth bit her lip, adding a few things to her checklist beneath the schedule. "Charlotte goes to bed around eight o'clock," she said, thinking aloud. "And...oh, shoot! I forgot that everybody's spending the night!"

Percy stared at her.

"There's Sally and Paul's bedroom, right? And yours? And Charlotte's, but she has a crib...and the couch," she said. "But there's you and me, and Piper and Jason, and Frank and Hazel, and Will and Nico, and Leo and Calypso...that's five beds, assuming they're all okay with that."

"We'll work something out," Percy assured her. "Don't stress about it. We're not even in the air yet and you're already freaking out. Gods, I'm the one that should be freaking out. I still don't know how you convinced me to fly."

She smiled weakly. "I just want to finish planning it!"

"Don't fret about it," he continued. "It's not like anybody cares about everything going smoothly."

"When has anything involving you gone smoothly?" Annabeth pointed out. "Because I can't think of a time."

"Hey!"

"Just telling the truth. And we'll change that sometime or another," she said, shrugging as she turned back down to her notebook. Percy, perceiving that she wasn't going to let down on her preparation, slipped her notebook out of her lap and her pen out of her hand before Annabeth could defend herself.

"Hey!" she protested. "Give that back!"

He shook his head. "You're getting too worked up about this," he said, tucking the notebook into the narrow space between his chair and the window. "We can just wing it. Or...improvise. That's a word, right?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Yes, improvise is a word. And you just want to listen to music."

"I mean, that's a bonus," said Percy, kissing her temple.

"You know I'm going to be fighting to get my notebook back during this whole flight, right?" she warned.

Percy shrugged. "Nothing I can't fend off."

"We'll see about that," said Annabeth, slumping back in her seat and beginning to flip through the available channels with great reluctance.

* * *

"They should be here by now," Sally remarked anxiously, glancing down at her phone. "Percy hasn't replied to my text yet."

"I doubt anything's happened," Paul said reassuringly, though he wasn't so sure himself. Knowing his stepson and his girlfriend, trouble could be anywhere. And an airport was a very liable location for an attack.

Sally looked around once more, Charlotte tugging at the sleeve of her jacket. "Mommy, I'm hungry," she whined.

"I know, honey, I'm sorry," said Sally. "When Percy and Annabeth get here you guys are going to grab a snack and go home."

"Mommy," groaned Charlotte. "I'm hungry!"

She sighed. "I'm sorry, sweetie, you're just going to have to be patient. They should be here soon."

"Here," Paul said, "you two can go to Starbucks and I'll stay here with the bags for when Percy and Annabeth get here, alright?"

"Paul, what is there for her to eat at Starbucks?" asked Sally desperately, taking Charlotte's hand. She didn't wait for a reply from her husband and set off in the direction of the food court.

The food court wasn't too far away from the terminal they were waiting at. As expected, there was a long line at Starbucks that Sally reluctantly joined with Charlotte by her side. Surprisingly, Charlotte was very patient until they reached the barista, which didn't take as long as Sally thought it would. For herself, she ordered an iced coffee and for Charlotte a steamed apple juice as well as a chocolate chip cookie. As they stood to the side waiting for their drinks and dessert, Charlotte exclaimed "Annie!" and jetted away. Sally immediately followed.

To her surprise, Charlotte had spotted Percy and Annabeth waiting in line, oblivious to the other customers. Annabeth turned, surprised, before bending down and hugging the little girl.

"Annie, Annie, Annie!" Charlotte shouted, jumping up and down through the embrace.

"Hi, Charlotte," Annabeth said, laughing. "I've missed you!"

"No love for your brother?" teased Percy, folding his arms across his chest behind the two.

Charlotte immediately pulled away from Annabeth and raced to Percy, who smoothly scooped her up off the ground. She buried her head on his shoulder with her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. "Annabeth wasn't the only one who missed you," he said into her ear. Charlotte giggled.

Sally, stunned by the coincidence of the situation, barely had time to say her hellos before the barista called her name. Charlotte skipped over to the counter with her mom, leaving Percy and Annabeth by themselves for a splitsecond.

"We've got to go," said Annabeth tensely. "We're not going to have much time to get ready...it's already, what-" She glanced at her phone. "-four-thirty. I told them six-thirty."

He wrapped an arm around her waist. "It's fine, Wise Girl. Everything will work out."

Sally and Charlotte soon returned. "Our flight is supposed to start loading soon," Sally told them.

"Where all are you and Paul going again?" asked Annabeth.

"We're flying into Chicago, spending a few days there, and then heading down to Springfield to be with Paul's sister, Cameron," she answered. "We probably need to load our bags, actually...would you two mind if Charlotte stayed with you? I'm going to tell Paul that we found you-he stayed at a bench with our bags waiting for you. Oh, did you get my text?"

"Text?" said Percy, pulling out his phone. "No…."

She frowned. "Oh, that's funny. It said it delivered."

Annabeth gently took Percy's phone from his hand, pulling up the bottom menu. "You're on airplane mode, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth laughed.

"Oh," said Percy, rubbing the back of his neck. "Whoops."

His mom chuckled before leaving the the three in the line.

"We probably should head on and grab a taxi," said Annabeth nervously, biting her lip again like she always did when she was anxious.

"I think they came in the car, didn't they?" said Percy. When Annabeth shrugged, he bent down and said to Charlotte, "Did you come here in your daddy's car?"

Charlotte took a nice swig of her apple juice through her straw first ("Priorities," Percy commented), before replying, "Yeah!"

Annabeth smiled. "Great, that's one less thing to worry about," she said. "But we still need to leave in the next five minutes."

"Doesn't look like that's going to happen," Percy remarked, jerking his head in the direction of the people standing in front of them.

"There's such thing as getting out of line, you know," said Annabeth.

"Percy!" cried Charlotte.

Both Percy and Annabeth looked down at her, not used to another person in their familial conversations. "What's wrong, Charlie?" said Percy.

Charlotte giggled. "My name's not Charlie! I have to potty!"

"I can take you," Annabeth volunteered, pulling her up to rest on her hip. "Do you mind…?"

Percy shook his head. "No, go ahead. What do you want?"

"I'll have a Pike Place Roast," she answered.

"Pike Place Roast. Got it." He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. Charlotte covered her eyes.

"Mommy and Daddy do that," she told Annabeth matter-of-factly as they walked in the direction of the restrooms.

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Really?" she said with a dramatically animated expression, as most people do when speaking to three-year-olds.

Charlotte gave a big nod. "Mommy said it's what mommies and daddies do."

"Oh," said Annabeth. "Annabeths and Percys do it too, then."

"You're a mommy?!"

"No," she said slowly. "Mommies have kids. Percy and I don't...um, have kids."

(The topic of prospective children was the only topic that could truly make Annabeth Chase uncomfortable. Even if it was with three-year-olds.)

"But...but little sister!"

"I don't think you're going to get a little sister," Annabeth said.

"Santa," said Charlotte firmly. "Santa can have one!"

"We'll see about that," said Annabeth warily as they stepped into the women's restroom. "Can you go by yourself, or do you want me to come with you?"

* * *

"You've got a cute daughter, sir."

Percy turned around to see a man, who looked to be in his mid-forties, looking at him expectantly. "Oh, Charlotte's not my daughter," Percy clarified quickly. "She's my sister."

"Oh," said the man awkwardly. "Well, she looks a lot like your wife, then."

Percy didn't bother explaining that situation as he stepped up to order his and Annabeth's drinks.

* * *

When Annabeth and Charlotte returned, Percy was leaning against a wall near the coffee shop. "Here's yours," said Percy, handing his girlfriend her coffee.

"Thanks," said Annabeth. "Where's your mom?"

"I just got her text from earlier. They were camped over at a bench near here, but they were loading up their luggage, so they're probably not stationed over there," said Percy, quickly looking at his phone for reference.

"Hm," said Annabeth, taking a sip of her coffee. "Maybe-"

"Oh, thank the gods," Percy interrupted suddenly as Paul and Sally appeared.

Sally smiled. "I thought you'd be here."

"You thought right," said Percy.

They said their goodbyes, with both Paul and Sally telling Charlotte to be good for Percy and Annabeth. (Paul even went as far as to say, "You don't want coal in your stocking, do you?")

As soon as they left, Percy looked at Annabeth and grinned. " _Now_ you can freak out."

* * *

"Oh, gods," Annabeth muttered to herself as they stepped out into the parking lot. "Your mom gave you the key to the car, right?"

Percy slipped a hand into his pocket and immediately withdrew it upon hearing a satisfactory jingle of metal on metal. "Yep," he said. "Why?"

"Here," Annabeth began, "you stay here with Charlotte, give me the keys, and I'll run out and try to find the car."

"It's pitch black and freezing. You're not going to have much success with that," said Percy. "I can do it, you can just stay here-"

"No, really, it's fine-"

"Just give me a second, I'll be back in no time-"

He broke into a small jog, but Annabeth quickly caught up to hold him off. "Your keys are in your pocket, right?" she grunted, trying to move his arms from where they were firmly planted in front of his pockets.

"We're in the middle of the road…," said Percy, suddenly alarmed. "I'll just do it…."

"Ha HA!"

Annabeth held up the keys, victorious, and sprinted off into the parking lot. She traced the shape of an unlocked padlock and began to wildly press it, pointing it at every car she ran beside on all sides. She couldn't see any of the vehicles very well in the five o'clock darkness of New York, and was stuck relying on this illogical method of elimination in order to find Paul's car.

Percy returned to where Charlotte patiently stood watching the scene unfold. "Guess we're just going to have to wait here," he said, sitting down next to his suitcase and motioning to her to do the same.

After about twelve minutes of Annabeth running around the parking lot, Paul's {look up what type of car} pulled up next to where Percy and Charlotte were waiting. She stepped out of the driver's seat to help load hers and Percy's bags they had brought with them from New Rome, before racing her boyfriend to resume the position. (Yet again, she was victorious.)

He retreated, defeated once more, to the passenger seat as Charlotte crawled into her car seat and buckled herself in. "Ready?" said Annabeth, looking first at Charlotte then Percy for confirmation.

"Yeah!" Charlotte said enthusiastically.

"Hey, Charlotte? Did Mommy tell you that Annabeth and I are having some friends over tonight?" said Percy gently, bracing himself for his sister's response while Annabeth began to drive out of the airport parking lot.

"Who?" she asked.

"Their names are Jason, Piper, Hazel, Leo, Frank, Nico, and Will," Percy told her. "You met Piper and Leo when you came to camp with us once, but you were so little that you probably don't remember it."

"Calypso's coming too, right?" Annabeth reminded him pointedly.

"Oh, uh...yeah, Leo's girlfriend is going to be there too," Percy added quickly.

"Yay!" said Charlotte.

The rest of the drive home was fairly uneventful, save for Annabeth's sudden rant on New York roads when they got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate, which added an extra twenty minutes to their drive.

Finally they reached the apartment complex. Percy and Annabeth dragged their luggage up the stairs to the second level, Charlotte running ahead of them with an energy and excitement that only a three-year-old could have. The couple temporarily just dropped their bags in Percy's bedroom, planning to unpack them the next day after their guests had left.

Annabeth almost immediately set to prepare for the Christmas party. As the primary messenger between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, Nico had been in charge of organizing the the Secret Santa. He utilized quite a traditionalistic method in doling out the gifters and giftees by writing and cutting out a slip of paper with every invitee's name on it and putting it in the crown of an old baseball cap. Leo, Calypso, Will, and himself all drew names first at Camp Half-Blood; then Frank, Hazel, Percy, and Annabeth at one of his visits to Camp Jupiter; and Nico randomly assigned Jason and Piper (who were in Los Angeles) the remaining names over e-mail. Whether or not anybody besides herself and Percy had actually bought gifts was out of Annabeth's reach, and she consciously decided that that was the one thing she couldn't be in control of tonight.

Thankfully, Paul and Sally kept the apartment decently clean - though it was doubtful that any of their guests would actually care about the cleanliness of the living room. Annabeth busied herself in the kitchen by pulling out the cookie dough Sally had pre-made for them out of the freezer. Unlike usual, it was not blue (though Percy had begged), as Annabeth had specially requested a "normal" cookie dough. She untangled the plastic wrap that it had been circled in and set it out on the counter over a bit of sprinkled flour.

"Hey, do you still have the keys to the car?" called Percy's voice from the living room.

"Yeah," Annabeth replied as he came into the room.

"Can I have them?"

"...why?"

"Uh, I forgot something for my secret santa gift," he admitted.

She tossed him the keys, not bothering to ask questions. "Hurry up, then. They'll be here in forty-five minutes."

"Got it," said Percy. "Come on, Charlotte!"

* * *

"Hey, Percy?" Annabeth yelled from the kitchen. "I think they're here! Can you get it? My hands are full!"

"Um...yeah!" she heard him call back.

Annabeth searched for the rolling pin she knew Sally had, opening cabinet doors and blindly rummaging through its contents, or sliding wooden drawers out and searching through them. "Percy?" she repeated.

"We're coming, we're coming!" he assured her.

At last she found the rolling pin, tucked in the back of a high cabinet, just as Percy - and presumably Charlotte as well - answered the door. A few "Hello!"s and "Hey, man"s were exchanged as everybody stepped into the apartment and looked around. She could hear Piper excitedly talking to Charlotte; Percy and Calypso's slightly awkward greeting; the crinkle of paper as Jason and Will put everybody's anonymously addressed gifts under Paul and Sally's tree.

Piper and Hazel joined her in the kitchen just as Annabeth began to roll out the cookie dough, after having let it sit out for the time Sally's directions had instructed. Charlotte toddled in behind them, and Calypso followed. They caught up as Annabeth cut out the cookies into festive shapes (with Charlotte's help, of course) and put them in the oven, while Percy and the other boys left to grab pizza from Murphy's.

By the time the boys returned, Annabeth and Charlotte had finished the cookies and set them out to cool. Everybody took a few pieces of pizza and gathered in the living room on the floor and couch. At first everyone had small conversations amongst themselves, but eventually it transitioned into group-wide discourse. Almost immediately the topic changed to college, with Percy and Annabeth launching into what would seem on the surface to be a well-rehearsed spiel about New Rome University's extraordinary academic opportunities for a smaller college.

"So," Percy said when he and Annabeth finished excitedly going back and forth about how amazing their freshman year had been thus far, "where are you all thinking of going to college?"

"First of all, thank you so much for that highly entertaining infomercial," said Leo sarcastically. "And if I have to go to college, I'll probably go to NYU."

"Oh, come on, of course you have to go to college," said Piper. "How else are you going to have a career?"

Leo shrugged. "I don't know, I'll probably just stay in Bunker Nine. Can't afford it, anyway."

"You can always get a scholarship," Hazel reminded him.

"I'll probably go to New Rome," Jason said, realizing Leo didn't know how to defend his prospective collegiate plans and trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

Piper hesitated before she spoke. "My dad wants me to go to UCLA," she said slowly. "So that I'm still close to him."

"New Rome isn't that far from Los Angeles," Percy pointed out.

"Far enough for him, I guess," Piper said. "But I've still got another year or so to figure out that whole mess."

"What about you, Frank?" asked Annabeth.

"Definitely New Rome," answered Frank. "That's a no-brainer."

"Me, too," Hazel added. "I don't want to go too far from Camp Jupiter, just in case anything happens or comes up. You never know."

"Nico?" Percy prompted.

"No way," replied Nico. "I'm perfectly fine at camp."

"You can come with me to med school," Will suggested next to his boyfriend.

Nico snorted. "I'm fine killing people with swords instead of needles, thanks."

"There are plenty of other degrees you could get," Will continued. "I don't know, maybe a-"

"I'm really okay without a college degree," Nico reiterated.

"On that cheery note," Annabeth said quickly, "it's somebody's bedtime."

All eyes turned to Charlotte, who was sitting in Percy's lap. "I'm not tired!" she protested, realizing that Annabeth was speaking of her.

"But it's your bedtime," said Percy pointedly, standing up and walking towards her bedroom. "A few minutes past your bedtime, actually."

"But-"

"Can you say goodnight to everyone?"

"'Night," Charlotte said, reluctance evident in her voice.

"Here, I'll go get the cookies," said Annabeth. "Can you guys start passing out gifts?"

Piper took up everybody's used paper plates and threw them in the trash, while Annabeth arranged the cookies she had made onto two plates and carried them into the living room. When the two returned, everybody's gifts were either in their laps or where they had been sitting. Leo had already opened his gift out of curiosity from its odd shape.

"What is this?" he said to nobody in particular, turning the cone-shaped hat around in his hands.

"It's a dunce cap," Hazel explained, laughing at his confusion.

"Oh, like a...a...punishment?" said Leo.

"Yeah. Your grandpa liked to...perform with them," she explained. "I don't know, it's a crappy gift, I just thought it was funny."

"No, no, it's cool," he assured her, still examining it. "Thanks."

Hazel went after him when Percy returned, unwrapping her gift to find a collection of books from Annabeth. ("Each of them highlight a particular decade," Annabeth explained. "The forties, fifties, sixties, seventies...you get the gist. There's one for every decade you missed.")

Everybody opened their presents one at a time to reveal what was typically a stereotypical gift. Frank received an invincible bow, courtesy of Leo ("I'm working on some arrows, if you want them," Leo offered.); from Nico, Will got a black skull t-shirt, which apparently was an inside joke between the two of them ("I thought we weren't partnering couples up?" said Piper. Nico only shrugged.); Calypso gave Nico a bat orchid ("I thought of you when I saw it," Calypso explained, breaking the uncomfortable silence.); Piper got makeup remover from Frank ("I...sorry, this probably sucks, doesn't it?" said Frank weakly. Piper just laughed.); Annabeth got a book about the history of architecture ("You know me well," Annabeth said immediately after Piper had admitted it was from her.); Calypso received a jar of lightning from Jason ("For actual purposes or just decoration," said Jason.); and Will gave Percy a book of underwater mythical creatures.

Lastly was Jason's gift, which everybody knew would be from Percy since he was the only one who had not explained or fessed up to a gift. "Wow, this is awfully heavy," said Jason, lifting his present into his lap from where it had been placed next to him. He slowly unwrapped it to find a red brick. "Oh, thanks, Percy-?"

"The real thing's back here," said Percy, standing and running back to his bedroom to fetch the real gift. He returned with a wrapped box, inside of which was a gray t-shirt with a lightning bolt on it. "I found it on Amazon...I think it was supposed to be for Harry Potter, but we can make it something for the son of Zeus, too," he said.

The demigods spoke for a bit after that, updating each other on what they had been doing at Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter and in New Rome and Los Angeles. It wasn't too long before they all decided to go to bed, exhausted from a long day.

* * *

"Thanks for putting this all together," said Percy, as he and Annabeth crawled into their adjacent sleeping bags on the living room floor. "Sleeping arrangements worked out well."

"Thank the gods," she said, zipping up the zipper and laying her head down on the pillow.

Percy paused, unsure of whether or not he should tell her what he was considering retelling. "There was a man at Starbucks who thought we were married and Charlotte was our daughter."

"Well, our hair does match," Annabeth replied after a moment.

"That's what I said," he agreed. "I told him that Charlotte was my sister, but…."

"It's fine, Seaweed Brain," she reassured him, smiling. They were both silent for a moment, before she added, "You know, marriage doesn't sound too bad. Not right now, but...someday."

"Someday," Percy agreed.

* * *

 **Happy New Year! Let's hope 2017 is a little - or a lot - better than 2016! :)**


End file.
